Art museums set up joint online video channel

Press Release

The online video channel ArtTube was launched in October 2009 by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and since then has become a great success. This autumn, the platform will be enhanced with the participation of four other renowned museums. ArtTube will then become the first structural online collaboration between art museums in the Dutch language area. This unique collaboration has partly been made possible by SNS REAAL Fonds, from the autumn of 2011 the chief sponsor of ArtTube.

Five museums for modern and contemporary art have bundled their resources to expand the online video channel ArtTube into the largest collective video platform for art and design in the Netherlands and Belgium. The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, M HKA in Antwerp, Gemeentemuseum The Hague, De Pont in Tilburg and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam will be publishing videos on this channel during the coming three years. In this way, the museums can inform the public about art, collections and other museum matters from one central platform.

ArtTube until now

ArtTube was developed with support from the VSBfonds, partner in education to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The video channel is both a widely accessible archive and an inspiring knowledge portal. At arttube.boijmans.nl there are unique interviews with reputable artists such as Carsten Höller, Pipilotti Rist and Olafur Eliasson. While the famous Pindakaasvloer (Peanut Butter Floor) by Wim T. Schippers was on display this spring, it was possible to question the artist on ArtTube via a webcam. ArtTube is not only an accessible way of providing the public with background information online, but also during a visit to the museum, in the rooms themselves.

The future of ArtTube

The five museums are going to develop ArtTube further in the coming three years, in order to achieve an even richer platform for high quality, evocative videos about art and design. The updated website aims at serving a broad public. The museums have the ambition of welcoming half a million visitors per year to the channel in 2014. The collaboration also offers the possibility of creating content together, thus allowing the physical borders of the museums and collections to be crossed. ArtTube is expected to develop into a platform for all Dutch and Belgian museums that produce videos.

International appeal

ArtTube is bilingual, so that the international visitor can also get to know the participating museums and the museum collections online. ArtTube is a partner of ArtBabble: a large American video channel with partners such as National Gallery of Art Washington, MoMA New York and Guggenheim. ArtBabble attracts more than 350,000 unique visitors per year, who also have access to a selection of ArtTube videos.

ArtTube has partly been made possible by a substantial contribution from the chief sponsor SNS REAAL Fonds. The Fonds considers the collaboration on content which the five museums are initiating with ArtTube as an example for projects in the cultural area.